Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Pop Quiz: Who Believes and Promotes the Fixity of Species Belief?

Historians will point to the eighteenth century Swedish super-scientist Carl von Linne, or Linnaeus, as a key figure in the history of thought who promoted the religious belief that once created, all species remain fixed throughout history.

That answer gets an F because not only did Linnaeus soften his views and no longer accept the fixity of species in his later years, but the question is not in the past tense. The question is in the present tense. Who believes, not believed, in the fixity of species.

Ah, that’s easy. Creationists, right? Wrong again. Go back and do your homework, or if you must, see the next line where the answer is given backwards:

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Yes, it is they who believe in the fixity of species. After all, modern evolutionary thought arose in the highly religious culture of seventeenth and eighteenth century western Europe. It was motivated by, and inherits religious ideas from that day. It is, in fact, stuck fast to its centuries-old metaphysical foundation. Far from the cutting-edge science it purports to be, evolution is little more than today’s ossified remains of long-since discarded religious ideas.

For example, as one of the major pillars of evidence for their theory evolutionists cite the adaptation of organisms that we observe in the laboratory and in the field. It is, according to evolutionists, a powerful proof text for evolution. There is a constant stream of evolutionists insisting that such evidence proves evolution to be a fact.

It is as if they are forever stuck in the nineteenth century, replaying Darwin’s marvel at how differing bird populations “undermine the stability of species.” Like Sisyphus forever pushing the rock up the hill, they are forever pushing the absurd idea that resistance to pesticides and antibiotics in plants and microbes, respectively, make evolution the only possibility because as Darwin believed, if God created the species they would be fixed.

As Ernst Mayr pointed out, the doctrine of fixity of species was a key barrier to overcome if the concept of evolution was to flourish:

Darwin called his great work On the Origin of Species, for he was fully conscious of the fact that the change from one species into another was the most fundamental problem of evolution. The fixed, essentialistic species was the fortress to be stormed and destroyed; once this had been accomplished, evolutionary thinking rushed through the breach like a flood through a break in a dike.

And indeed evolutionary thinking eventually did rush in, on the power of metaphysical arguments such as this one. But these powerful religious motivations don’t just go away. Indeed, they provide the justification and motivation in the face of daunting scientific contradictions. And so to this day, evolutionists continually repeat their mantras from centuries past. Here is a typical example of how, today, the religion has become so ingrained in evolutionary thought. Below the video is the text beginning at the 9 second mark.

[0.09] What we study is how viruses and bacteria and other microbes get inside your body to infect them. And what I wanted to talk to you about today was how evolution is involved in that process, and basically why we think evolution is very important to understand.

So, when you get infected by a virus or a bacterium, there is basically a war going on inside your body, where the virus wants to multiply, or the bacteria wants to multiply, and your immune system wants to keep it back down. Now what happens is that, we as humans have evolved over millennia to actually have specific cells and those cells have particular receptors that will get rid of the virus or kill it or sequester it or some way make it so that it can’t infect you and make you sick.

Now the virus then, is evolving inside our bodies to get around that immune system. And if you look at the genes inside viruses, sometimes they steal long stretches of genes from their host, and other times they have mimics of genes in their host. So basically, viruses have this tremendous chance to evolve inside of people, that is their host, so they can get around an immune system.

So a successful virus would be something like influenza virus, that changes every year. So what it does is it mutates. It makes a lot of different forms of itself. Most of these are completely useless—that is they are defective viruses. But out of the millions and millions of viruses that it makes, one or a few of those will be better, and those will go on and multiply and infect other people. That is evolution at work.

So basically, the viruses make millions of copies of themselves, most of them are worse. They’re making random mutations, random changes. They don’t know beforehand what’s good or what’s bad. The best ones will win out, and those will go on and infect.

In the same way, people have evolved, but over a much slower time scale. So that they made some changes in their immune system, to keep up with particular viruses and other changes that were actually worse. And the changes that were beneficial gradually win out.

So in a nutshell, that’s an example of evolution, at play, in your body, that goes on all the time.

And so I think we need to understand this, because bacteria in particular are able to mutate to get around antibiotics. It’s another example of evolution. We need to understand this, so that we can develop drugs that will actually get around bacteria’s incredible ability to evolve quickly, to get around the drugs we use today. Thank you.

For many this just proves that evolutionists are liars. Or that they are fools.

But when evolutionists such as Professor Bjorkman make these arguments, they are not consciously lying. Here Professor Bjorkman is smart, knowledgeable and honestly speaking her mind.

So how to explain evolutionists, such as Bjorkman, when they present their evolutionary absurdities with all the earnestness of a five-year-old talking about Santa Claus? It isn’t from ignorance or from deceit.

Wow. This is incredibly poor, even for Cornelius' jaw-dropping standards.

There's usually a projected, corkscrew logic running through most of Cornelius' posts but this one is totally unfathomable.

First off, let's accuse 'evolutionists' of believing in the FIXITY of species! No examples, no explanations, no clarification at how this isn't totally at odds with the concept of life, y'know, EVOLVING!

Then let's follow that up with a quote from Ernst Mayr actually contradicting the point we just made.

Finally let's add a video from the bright and eloquent Professor Bjorkman giving a perfectly reasonable example of evolution in action and call it absurd without bothering to point out how or where.

OK, Cornelius, let's try helping you with this. I shall make the wild guess that in the first part of the OP you meant to say something like what is explained in this article. But, be warned, it was written by an evil lying evolutionist who tries to hide historical facts because of his religiously-driven materialistic agenda, &c.

So, Cornelius -- do you believe in the fixity of Genesis kinds? I think you owe us an answer, given how much you accuse other people of being driven by religious dogma.

Whatever your answer to that question, answer these:

(a) Would you agree that many creationists are committed to the doctrine of created "kinds"

(b) What's the definition of a "kind", according to creationists? How can we tell what is in the "kind", and therefore evolvable from common ancestors, and what is not, and therefore had to be produced by divine intervention?

The underlying problem is the assumption that the knowledge of how to build each species has always existed. This assumption fails to explain a number of observations.

What we observe in complex systems, such as the human brain, is adaptation. However, the adaptations we observe are not abstract. They represent a very specific concrete set which are in of themselves unique out of a wide range of possible adaptations.

One of the things we know about how systems work is that they do not become adapted by "magic". Rather, they become adapted because of the presence of knowledge of *how* to perform those specific adaptations. As such, the origin of this knowledge is the origin of these adaptations.

For example, the cars we drive to day are far better adapted then those in the past. And these adaptations are very specific, rather than just abstract. Our explanation for the differences in these adaptations is that the knowledge used to perform them was created over time. Other adaptations are can explained in tradeoffs that are also knowledge related. For example, we have the knowledge of how to build a car that could withstand nearly any impact. However, we lack the knowledge of how to do so that is also cheap, exhibits good performance and fuel efficiency. In addition, cars do not yet build themselves. As such, they do not contain this knowledge. Rather, this knowledge exists externally in human beings, the books we write and the machines we use to build them, etc.

Furthermore, our explanation for how we, as people, create knowledge is that we use conjecture to create theories, which are then tested by observations. Those with errors are discarded.

In the case of the biosphere, organisms literally build themselves when the necessary energy to do so is present. As such, the knowledge is embedded in the genome of each species, rather than being external as with cars.

We explain this knowledge in that it was created by a form of undirected genetic variation and natural selection. Evolutionary theory is limited in that it doesn't explain the origin of the underlying processes that ultimately create these variations, but it does explain the origin on the knowledge use to build each species.

An intelligent agent that "just was" complete with the knowledge of how to build each spices, already present, serves no explanatory purpose. This is because one could more simply state that each species "just appeared", complete with this knowledge already present in it's DNA.

All this does is push the problem into some unexplainable mind the exists in some unexplainable realm. Unless you're using a radically different criteria, I fail to see how this qualifies as the best explanation for the specific adaptations we observe in the biosphere.

For example, how do ID theorists explain how organisms appear with the least complex adaptations to most complex? Again, evolutionary theory explains these adaptations in that something cannot be built with first creating the knowledge of how to do so. Is this not something we fundamentally know about systems?

If the knowledge of how to build each species was always present, there would be no need to perform the adaptations in each species at different times. Nor would the adaptations need to span billions of years, with the most complex species only appearing in the last 500 million years or so. How do ID theorists explain this?

Evolution explains this in that, unlike people, undirected natural process cannot create explanations as to why some genetic adaptations would work better a reproducing themselves in some environment than others. On the other hand, we can and do discard mere possibilities, even before testing, if they lack good expansions.

How do ID theorists explain why over 98% of all adaptations of organisms resulted in that organism's extinction? Again, evolutionary theory explains this in that the great majority of all of the genetic variations create in the genome will not be successful, yet still tested. Even those that would eventually result in extinction.

Furthermore, you cannot easily vary the underling explanation of knowledge creation that evolution presents and get the same pattern of biological adaptation. It's hard to vary. And it depends of a long chain of explanations, such as heritable traits, the role DNA plays in the development of organisms, the process reproduction, the changing environment, etc.

On the other hand the "explanation" (if you can call it that) of an abstract or omnipotent and omniscient designer can be easily varied as still get the same results. Which designer? How many designers? Was it some advanced alien races that's existed for billions of years or some supernatural being?

In case it's not clear, creationists believe in the fixation of knowledge. Rather than being created over time, knowledge always "just was".

A belief in the fixity of species was, in part, a side effect of this underlying belief.

Specifically, if knowledge never was created, then it cannot change over time. When combed with a belief that some knowledge comes from divine communication from an all knowing being, this leads to a belief that divinely revealed knowledge must always be unchangeably be True, with a capital T.

This is the sort of mindset that causes us to hold on to our mistakes, rather than expect them and adapt to them.

Indeed darwin in his book pressed home that fixity of species by a creator being not true was a objective on the way to saying his idea is true.Yet his idea should not be founded on proving another idea is not true.Its not science.

Likewise dArwin was presuming that their was never a flood. Ho constantly pressed about birds on islands being impossible from a creator.Yet bible believing creationists would see the flood as trumping biogeography from creation.So speciation in birds is fine with genesis.Just like in people.

Proving the existing idea is wrong is not proof for your new idea.Darwin seemed to think it was.

Yes everyone needs mechanisms for biological change.

In fact it simply was staring us in the face.If all people are from Noah and his wife and segregated colours of skin and many other details of human varieties are apparent then something made it this way.What was it?my fellow yEC folks are very quiet about these things or invoke vague genetic diversity ideas.

The third general possibility -- and there are only the three possible general explanations -- is stupidity. That is, people assert what is false because:1) they are too stupid to understand the truth of the matter;2) they misunderstand the truth of the matter;3) they practice deceit: either attempted deceipt of others, whether direct or indirect, or of themselves, which is generally via the indirect route of declining to reason correctly.

With this said, I think now is a good time to set the record straight: creationists do not believe in the fixity of species. Furthermore, creationists do believe microevolution is an observable fact, and they do believe speciation can and does occur. (In fact, speciation plays an important role in the creationist’s model.) Creationists have no qualms with believing animals of different species such as the wolf, coyote, and fox all had a common canine ancestor (microevolution), but the line gets drawn when evolutionists insist that these species also share a common ancestor with dolphins (macroevolution).

If so what is the mechanism of microevolution? Is it natural? Is it random in any sense?

Robert If all people are from Noah and his wife and segregated colours of skin and many other details of human varieties are apparent then something made it this way.What was it?my fellow yEC folks are very quiet about these things or invoke vague genetic diversity ideas.

Please ,go on. Why are people quiet about it? What was the Designer up to,biblically speaking?

"It would have been my guess that you considered most people too stupid to appreciate your monumental intellect."

What, because you appear to be too stupid to understand that "[it is possible] that they are actually correct" in no way contradicts "[there are three general categories of explanation for why] people assert what is false" THEREFORE I simply must imagine either that I have a monumental intellect and/or that everyone else is too stupid to grasp the deliverances of that intellect?

Still, I believe I am beginning to see why you might think that I have a monumental intellect.

Ilion"What, because you appear to be too stupid to understand that "[it is possible] that they are actually correct" in no way contradicts "[there are three general categories of explanation for why] people assert what is false"

The claimThe third general possibility -- and there are only three possible general explanations

I did not claim to contradict your three categories. Just your unfounded claim that there are only three. While it is possible that there are only 3 categories for some claims,CH claimed that only ignorance or deceit would account their false belief that evolution was capable of producing life in its present forms You added your third category, stupidity, in reference to that statement, it is reasonable to assume you agreed with CH's assertion. And in that particular claim, that "evolutionary absurdities"are false, there is a fourth category ,that those who make evolutionary claims are correct, neither stupid, deceitful nor misunderstanding the "truth".. Your claim that there are only three categories is false.

And I did not claim that you had a monumental intellect, rather you believed yourself to be so endowed.

"Still, I believe I am beginning to see why you might think that I have a monumental intellect."

illion, that you think that you have a monumental intellect is obvious in the things you say. Like other religious zealots, you portray yourself as a prophet who is here on Earth to reveal sage truths to lost, stupid people.

What Cornelius implicitly presented in his OP is sort of loaded question, in that he holds a presupposition that "evolutionists" actually are making false arguments in the first place.

Ilíon is merely attempting to further obscure this presupposition by hiding it behind a false dilemma.

It's like claiming "There are only three reasons why you've stop beating your wife." Despite the fact that this is obviously a false dilemma, the presupposition that the individual in question was beating their wife is built into the question referenced it the claim. It's even more deceptive.

Ah! I get it now -- youse guys are so intimidated by me that you do that projection thingie you're all so fond of doing, and turn my demonstrations that you're not reasoning properly into an assertion that you *cannot* reason properly.

And now, apparently, you're even intimidated by my appearance. One wonders how badly you'd be reacting if I hadn't hidden most of my face.

As to the more important of your two sources of intimidation, I've explained this before, but here goes again: I'm not saying that you DarwinDefenders are stupid, I'm saying that you're intellectually dishonest.

In know! And yet, most DarwinDefenders give copious evidence that they are seriously discomfited by me. For example, they always seem to have this need to assert that I post "ramblings" which are "incoherent" -- mind you, now, they *never* actually show where the incoherency is.

And everyone knows that "reasoning correctly" can only lead to the conclusion that God exists, right?

Before a supposed refusal to "reason correctly" could be deceit, we'd have to know a particular way to reason is indeed "correct." How do you propose that we know this is the case, and to what degree?

It wouldn't have anything to do with a variant of the claim that everyone knows that God truly exits, but is denying it, would it? However, this would imply divine revelation revelation is a valid means of justifying conclusions.

In other words, what's you explanation as to why reasoning one way, rather than another, leads progress of some sort? In the absence of a good explanation, you might as well say "it's magic."

I am saying everyone needs to discover mechanisms for biological change.Micro evolution or minor natural selection is a option for minor results in biology but still I'm not sure it did happen to any extent.

If God created a perfect world with great diversity it would be reasonable that after the fall selection pressures would be affecting biology.

This YEC does see wolves, bears, and probably seals as coming from the same kind off the Ark.Mechanism is needed to explain the speed of diversity.,However the raw clue is human beings.After a century or so after the flood all the great differences in man in colour and body details were here. Not by selection but surely innate triggers to adapt us to the areas we settled.

"This YEC does see wolves, bears, and probably seals as coming from the same kind off the Ark."

This being the case, you have just admitted you find it plausible that a single genus can give rise to several species, a family can give rise to several genera, and a suborder can give rise to several families. That's quite the concession, really. Why is it not possible for an order to give rise to several suborders, or a class to give rise to several orders, etc.?

By the bye, we humans belong to a suborder called Haplorhini, which includes all tarsiers, monkeys and apes.

"After a century or so after the flood all the great differences in man in colour and body details were here.Not by selection but surely innate triggers to adapt us to the areas we settled."

So how to explain evolutionists, such as Bjorkman, when they present their evolutionary absurdities with all the earnestness of a five-year-old talking about Santa Claus? It isn’t from ignorance or from deceit.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

To dwell a bit more on Ilion's law of "there can only be three" apparently Dr Hunter believes that there is 5) religious delusion,that which educated ,honest evolutionist such as Dr Bjorkman can suffer from. The irony of this category is an 11.

This YEC does see wolves, bears, and probably seals as coming from the same kind off the Ark.

I bet that YEC's reasoning for arriving to that conclusion must be quite amusing.

Ritchie:

This being the case, you have just admitted you find it plausible that a single genus can give rise to several species, a family can give rise to several genera, and a suborder can give rise to several families. That's quite the concession, really. Why is it not possible for an order to give rise to several suborders, or a class to give rise to several orders, etc.?

Warninig Ritchie: Taxonomic category reification alert!! All that really happens is clades giving rise to clades. The assignation of taxonomic categories is merely an aesthetic convention that adds nothing to the discussion of the actual biology.

But where does it end? So many IDers admit (grudgingly) that microevolution does happen (to explain away all that pesky evidence of it happening) but insist there is some kind of barrier preventing microevolution simply building on itself and becoming macroevolution, but consistently fail to elaborate what this barrier is, or how far up the tree of life it is to be found.

WHICH clades may give rise to WHICH clades? How many clades may be found inside a single umbrella clade? I'm angling for specifics.

So many IDers admit (grudgingly) that microevolution does happen (to explain away all that pesky evidence of it happening) but insist there is some kind of barrier preventing microevolution simply building on itself and becoming macroevolution

Well, some biologists do think like that, but it doesn't help to pretend it's the only position. For some people the distinction between the two is different: microevolution doesn't become macroevlution, both of them account for separate levels of causality. This is Larry Moran's take on it:

The complete modern theory of evolution encompasses much more than changes in the genetics of a population. It includes ideas about the causes of speciation, long-term trends, and mass extinctions. This is the domain of macroevolution—loosely defined as evolution above the species level. The kind of evolution that focuses on genes in a population is usually called microevolution.

For our creationist readers: No. That is not an admission of a magic barrier. Go read the article.

Ritchie:

WHICH clades may give rise to WHICH clades?

Exactly, that's why "orders", "families", and "genera" don't matter. Carnivora, Canidae, and Canis matter. Taxonomic categories are meaningless and just help reinforce the idea of organisms being neatly divided by some magic boundaries.

Richie No evolution by selection on mutation.Its impossible and never happened.mutationism has been a needed myth.Evolution so much needs mutations that it flys under the radar in being plausible.

Bears, wolves, seals fits within a yEC creationist model for fixed kinds.Diversity is fine and shown in mankind.Mechanism is needed however boundaries are there.fixed kinds and little time.I say people are the clue. We changed instantly to help us survive problems in areas we moved too after the flood.

GeoxesYEC creationism only seeks to assert the truth of the bible and defeat criticisms of it.Anything that fits biblical boundaries is fine.Evolution doesn't.However biological change is fine within boundaries.In facxt a great case for us is the biblical story of the snake.The snake lost its legs as a punishment by God.Yet it was still within the snake kind.In fact all snakes come probably from a single pair off the ark.Yet there are squeezers, spitters, egg layers, live birthers, upright cobras , small guys, sea snakes and so on.So we would and must allow mecghanisms to have quickly brought this about.Some yEC might argue there were different kinds on the flood but still diversity is real and not original.

You accept that bears, wolves and even seals descend from a common ancestor. But how? How can a single species diversify into such different creatures as seals wolves and bears if you declare evolution by selection on mutation to be 'impossible'?

"I say people are the clue.We changed instantly to help us survive problems in areas we moved too after the flood."

Evolution is biological change, and it has boundaries: those of physics and chemistry. Your problem is not evolution by itself, but universal common ancestry and all of population genetics.

In facxt a great case for us is the biblical story of the snake.The snake lost its legs as a punishment by God.Yet it was still within the snake kind.

Caecillians and amphisbaenians too?

Some yEC might argue there were different kinds on the flood but still diversity is real and not original.

1) If Noah gathered a pair of animals from all existing species before the flood, and following the pattern of diversification after the flood you described, ecosystems before the flood would have been incredibly depauperate and species would have been so little adapted to them, they would have been so fragile they would most probably have spontaneously collapsed. Of course, magic was keeping everything working, so this wouldn't trouble you.

I can't think of many things more amusing than DarwinDefenfers, of all people, trying to attack a YECer as being illogical or irrational. Hell! just look at the way those foolish folk have behaved in this thread alone.

GeoxesIndeed what is a kind is a issue. its lost in time. Yet by anatomy and assumption that kinds must be quite different from each other originally to justify the division ONE can group some.I see bears, wolves, probably seals as within a single kind because their morphology is so alike. Yes probably more.Species were not picked for the ark. Species is just a special case of variety within kind.Again the snake and people is the great clue for variety within kind.

Ilíon:For example, they always seem to have this need to assert that I post "ramblings" which are "incoherent" -- mind you, now, they *never* actually show where the incoherency is.

I'm still waiting for your explanation for our relatively recent, rapid increase in the creation of knowledge. In the absence of such an explanation, preferring one way of "reasoning" over another is irrational.

Let me guess, after a tens of thousands of years, God decided human beings should start making progress. And so we did!

In other words, you seem to thin we live in a universe where bad explanations are true. If this is the case, then how do you explain our ability to create progress? Apparently, that's just what God must have wanted, which is yet another bad explanation.

"I'm not saying that you DarwinDefenders are stupid, I'm saying that you're intellectually dishonest."

Hey dullard, can you show me where anyone in this thread defended Darwin, or even brought him up besides you, Byers, and Cornelius?

If anything is being 'defended', it's the evidence of evolution, and the scientific method.

You "intellectually dishonest" thumpers really need to get over your fear of, and obsession with, Darwin, and getting rid of your stupidity by getting an education in science and the ToE would be a good idea too.

Ilíon: For example, they always seem to have this need to assert that I post "ramblings" which are "incoherent" -- mind you, now, they *never* actually show where the incoherency is.

Scott: Before a supposed refusal to "reason correctly" could be deceit, we'd have to know a particular way to reason is indeed "correct." How do you propose that we know this is the case, and to what degree?

Scott: I'm still waiting for your explanation for our relatively recent, rapid increase in the creation of knowledge. In the absence of such an explanation, preferring one way of "reasoning" over another is irrational.

Ilíon: Another amusement -- in a boring sort of way -- is DarwinDefenders imagining that anyone answers to them.

What's amusing is your attempt to conflate answering a reasonable and direct question, which is a response to your own claims, with being responsible to someone is particular.

I have to admit that I too am having trouble seeing a clear connection between Dr Bjorkman's words and the main thesis of this post. How is Dr Bjorkman promoting belief in fixity of species?

My guess is that because she applies the label "example of evolution" to small changes in bacteria/viruses and humans that don't involve new speciation (at least she doesn't make any claims of speciation in this talk, though she presumably would say elsewhere that evolution *is* responsible for the origin of new species and higher taxa), she is "promoting" an evolutionist belief in "fixity of species." As literal logic this doesn't make much sense, but knowing you, I would interpret it instead as sarcastic hyperbole to mock Darwinists for conflating microevolution (for which we have evidence) with macroevolution (for which grand claims are made despite evidence to the contrary). Am I interpreting right?

I appreciate your aiming high, presuming intelligence on the part of your readers... but judging from the comments here, and my own puzzlement, you are aiming a little too high. I would appreciate more of an explanation of what you mean.

Oh, my! There is in this thread a great amusement I hadn't noticed until a few minutes ago --

Gentle Reader may recall that the DarwinDefenders who buzz about Mr Hunter's blog were having the vapors, in this and another thread, and engaging in the sort of misrepresentation endemic amongst them, in response to my post in which I briefly laid out the three (and only three (*) ) general categories of explanation for why a person might assert that which is false.

Now, as it turns out, even before I had posted the above linked true-and-valid trilemma (which some brainiac imagined he could dismiss by calling it a "false dilemma"), 'Hawks' had attempted a false-and-twisted version of it. If Gentle Reader has a strong stomach (or a weak nose), then get a whiff of DarLogic "reasoning" in action: "Ah, someone giving examples of evolution proves that evolutionists are liars. That would make Cornelius a) a liarb) stupidc) deludedd) all of the above"

And, of course, *not one* DarwinDefender raised a peep about that example of anti-reasoning; no, no, no! all their bile had to be reserved so as to pointlessly attack my validly reasoned trilemma.

I guess the take-home lesson is something like: Never underestimate the propensity of DarwinDefenders' intellectual dishonesty of lead them into displaying great stupidity.

(*) One of the amusements the DarwinDefenders had already intentionally offered in this thread was to assert, and vociferously re-assert (with, of course, no demurrals from any other DarwinDefender), that -- I kid you not -- a fourth general category of explanation for why a person might assert that which is false is "That they are actually correct".

illion, you obviously like to play childish games, and think that you're quite witty. Well, in regard to the latter that is half true.

You present yourself as though you're a master of word comprehension yet your own word construction is often just a bunch of incoherent gibberish. For example:

"Never underestimate the propensity of DarwinDefenders' intellectual dishonesty of lead them into displaying great stupidity."

When velikovskys said...

"Of course there is a 4. That they are actually correct,"

...it's obvious (except to you) that he was suggesting an alternative to your accusations. He could have added a sentence or two to be more technically explanatory but he likely assumed (and mistakenly so) that anyone with even a grade school education would understand what he meant. His mistake was in assuming that IDiots like you would actually think, reason, and understand.

Now, you claim:

"I briefly laid out the three (and only three (*) ) general categories of explanation for why a person might assert that which is false."

According to you, the three categories are:

"That is, people assert what is false because:1) they are too stupid to understand the truth of the matter;2) they misunderstand the truth of the matter;3) they practice deceit: either attempted deceipt of others, whether direct or indirect, or of themselves, which is generally via the indirect route of declining to reason correctly."

Just to show how limited you are, (in other words I'm not agreeing with you that so-called "DarwinDefenders" are stupid, deceitful, or that they misunderstand the truth of the matter), I'll add a fourth category that relates (sort of) to your number 2:

4. they assert something false because they have not been presented with, nor have they sought, the truth of the matter.

In other words, they can't "misunderstand" something that they aren't aware of. Many people suggest, imply, or assert things that are false simply because they aren't aware of "the truth". There's a difference between asserting something false about something you're aware of but misunderstand, and asserting something false because of being unaware of "the truth".

And just for kicks, how about a number 5:

5. at the time of the assertion, what the person asserted is "the truth" as can best be determined with the evidence at hand.

In science, for example, many things are provisional, and especially inferences, hypotheses, and theories. The "truth" today may not be the "truth" tomorrow. The word "truth" isn't really accurate as to what science is looking for anyway, although the words 'true' or "truth" may be correctly applicable to some things at some times.

So, since I have shown, in more ways than one, that you have "a disinclination, or outright refusal, to reason correctly", and since you say that do that "*is* deceit", I think you should just admit that you are deceitful. Confession is good for the soul. LOL

(a) Would you agree that many creationists are committed to the doctrine of created "kinds"

(b) What's the definition of a "kind", according to creationists? How can we tell what is in the "kind", and therefore evolvable from common ancestors, and what is not, and therefore had to be produced by divine intervention?

Cornelius G. Hunter is a graduate of the University of Illinois where
he earned a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology. He is
Adjunct Professor at Biola University and author of the award-winning Darwin’s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. Hunter’s other books include Darwin’s Proof, and his newest book Science’s Blind Spot
(Baker/Brazos Press). Dr. Hunter's interest in the theory of evolution
involves the historical and theological, as well as scientific, aspects
of the theory. His website is http://www.darwins-god.blogspot.com/